Published 10:00 pm, Monday, June 15, 2009

STATELINE, Nev. -- I absolutely loved him and still miss him, and I am now sitting next to him in the bar at the Edgewood Tahoe clubhouse.

If you're a golf fan, you must remember Ben Wright. He was a fixture on CBS telecasts for 24 years, the guy with the unmistakable British accent. Forget Jim Nantz and Ken Venturi, Wright was the highlight of the whole damn show.

If you were a regular viewer, you imitated Wright, who says now that Sammy Davis Jr. was the best impersonator of all.

"He did a better Ben Wright than I did," Wright said. "He had me so great, it was unbelievable."

Wright's been gone from CBS for 13 years now, shortly after he made some homophobic comments to a reporter that cost him his job.

In a 1995 interview, Wright "supposedly" told a Delaware newspaper, the News Journal, that "lesbians in the sport hurt women's golf" and "they're going to a butch game and that furthers the bad image of the game" and that "women are handicapped by having boobs. It's not easy for them to keep their left arm straight, and that's one of the tenets of the game. Their boobs get in the way."

I say he "supposedly" said these things because Wright denied that he did when I caught up with him two weeks ago on a golf trip called "Golf the High Sierra" media tour in which reporters played 36 holes a day at courses in the Reno-Carson City-Lake Tahoe area.

(Yeah, it was grueling duty. Especially tough was the one morning round at The Resort at Squaw Creek with the hosted beverage cart.)

Wright said his remarks to the woman reporter from the News Journal were off the record and that he wouldn't have made them otherwise.

"I missed it like hell, so badly that I went on a real downspin," he said. "I went to the Betty Ford Clinic, and they re-educated me about how I should behave, which means I no longer can drink vodka."

Wright has a half-downed cabernet in front of him now. He's as likable as you'd expect. I played with him at Montreux, a private club where they hold the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open on the PGA Tour.

He quit after seven holes because there was lightning in the area, and he understandably wanted no part of that. Roberto De Vicenzo told him once that lightning hit him and threw him 50 feet, and when he went to find his buddies, the bolt had turned them to ashes.

Wright used to be a 2 handicap and still has a beautiful swing. But he's nearly 77 and can't hit it very far anymore, playing what he calls "miniature golf." After hitting a shot that came up short of the green, Wright mumbled: "What a pathetic effort," and it took me back to a time when he said that on my TV all the time.

If you want to hear him now, he makes regular appearances on the "John Boy & Billy Big Show" on WRFX in Charlotte, N.C.

"It's basically a redneck thing," Wright said. "I'm an absolute contrast between John Boy and Billy. They make fun of me, and I make fun of them."

He designs golf courses and has a seat on the village council of Flat Rock in western North Carolina, where he lives with his fifth wife.

Five wives? I ask him if he got it right this time, and he says that he did.

"I was very ambitious and I traveled the world," Wright said. "Life was not terribly easy. I was forever away. I have nothing but sympathy for my ex-wives."

All but one has died. He proceeds to tell a story about his third wife. Wright came home a day early from the States to play with his kids. When he arrived, his oldest daughter told him that mom was upstairs, in bed with another man.

"So I loaded my double-barrel shotgun," Wright said.

But the man heard the ruckus downstairs, jumped out the bedroom window, landed in a rose bush and fled.

"If he had stayed, would you have shot him?" I asked.

"Yeah," Wright said. "I would have shot them both, no question. I'd be a liar if I said different."

Wright had five daughters, but one was killed in 1986 when her car was hit by a drunken driver. Wright has her picture in his office and says that his heart skips a beat every time he sees her.

How'd he end up in Flat Rock? Somebody in Manhattan told him that Asheville, N.C., was a nice place to live, so Wright checked it out and agreed -- Flat Rock is 22 miles from Asheville.

Wright also writes columns for LINKS magazine, where you'll find him musing about his debut with CBS at the 1972 U.S. Professional Match Play Championship at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.

At one point after one of the leaders recorded a triple bogey, Wright said: "Now it's a whole new ballgame."

Which caused producer Frank Chirkinian to bellow through his headset: "From whom did you learn that expression, you dumb Limey?"

Wright explained that he learned it from Americans.

"Well, let me tell you this," Chirkinian said. "You are employed as a Limey, and all Limeys speak like they have plums in their mouths, and nobody here understands a thing they say. If I ever understand another word you say, you're fired."

That night, Wright wanted to quit and tried to book a flight home on British Airways, but every seat was taken. He stayed and remained at CBS for nearly a quarter-century.

After that, Wright had a chance to join NBC, but he blew that opportunity by talking too much about his lesbian comments in his book, "Good Bounces and Bad Lies." He was asked by "The Golf Channel" to be a studio analyst for the 2008 Ryder Cup at Valhalla in Louisville, but they didn't want to pay him anything.

"So my agent told them to go (bleep) themselves," Wright said.

When he watches golf now, he hits the mute button.

"There's too much babble," Wright said. "It's like a radio show for the blind."

He likes CBS's David Feherty and Gary McCord, and Peter Oosterhuis to a point, saying: "He's rather boring, but at least he does a competent job."

What about NBC's Johnny Miller? "I like him when he's good," Wright said. "But I hate some of the dumb things he says."

"Is he too critical?" I ask.

"Yeah, I think so," Wright said. "He's terribly self-centered."

I then asked Wright why he was so popular on CBS.

"I have no bloody idea," he said. "But I'm almost more popular today than when I was working. I show up everywhere, and people tell me how much they miss me. It's beyond my comprehension."

We're the last two people in the bar, and it's time to leave. Wright is dealing with a sinus infection that almost prevented him from coming. He also needs to lose weight. But there are no complaints, no regrets either.

In the parking lot, I ask him if he planned to head across the street to gamble, and he said no, but that leads to another story about the time that he paid $50 for Fuzzy Zoeller in a pool to win the 1979 Masters.

The auctioneer mocked Wright, telling him that a first-timer at Augusta hadn't won in decades. But Zoeller won, and Wright pocketed $26,000.

Yes, he wishes the incident that took him off the air never happened. But it did.

"Life's too short to hold grudges and all that (bleep)," Wright said. "I've adjusted. I just keep truckin'. I'm really a happy man."